No other excuse is to be offered but the sort of interruption which sadness gives.

I really had not the heart to sit down and talk of my 'Aurora,' even in reference to the pleasure and honour brought to me by the expression of your opinion, when the beloved friend associated with the poor book was lost to me in this world, gone where perhaps he no longer sympathises with pleasure or honour of mine, now--for nearly the first time.

_Perhaps._ After such separations the sense of _distance_ is the thing felt first.

And certainly my book at least is naturally saddened to me, and the success of it wholesomely spoiled.
Yet your letter, my dearest Mona Nina, arrived in time to give me great, great pleasure--true pleasure indeed, and most tenderly do I thank you for it.

I have had many of such letters from persons loved less, and whose opinions had less weight; and you will like to hear that in a fortnight after publication Chapman had to go to press with the second edition.